12. Key Changes from the Experimental Protocols and Framework

The original framework for internationalized email addresses and headers was described in RFC 4952 and a subsequent set of experimental protocol documents. Those relationships are described in Section 3. The key architectural difference between the experimental specifications and this newer set is that the earlier specifications supported in-transit downgrading. Those mechanisms included the definition of syntax and functions to support passing alternate, all-ASCII addresses with the non-ASCII ones as well as special headers to indicate the downgraded status of messages. Those features were eliminated after experimentation indicated that they were more complex and less necessary than had been assumed earlier. Those issues are described in more detail in Sections 6 and 9.